RE: [registrars] White paper on new gTLDs from Philip Sheppard et al

["Bruce Tonkin" <Bruce.Tonkin@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Hello Tim,

> 
> I am also concerned with viability. Registry failure is going 
> to happen sooner or later. But there is no point in inviting 
> it by only requiring certain financial and technical 
> requirements for a new TLD. That does not do much for 
> promoting a stable and secure Internet. I think there also 
> needs to be verifiable market research that indicates 
> viability, and clear and well defined marketing plans from 
> any applicant.
> 

One approach to a viability test could be to require that a proposed new
TLD, first establish a second level TLD and show that it is viable in
terms of number of registrations and business model (ie earns sufficient
revenue to cover full operating costs - to avoid just offering a large
number of free registrations initially).

I have been thinking about a model where a new TLD can set up initially
as a second level domain
(e.g sport.com, aol.com etc) to demonstrate to the community the
concept, method of allocating names etc.   Some basic objective
thresholds (e.g > million active registrations, > $ million in financial
resources, open to all registrars etc) could be established for a review
in 12 months, 24 months etc before creating the TLD.
When the new TLD is approved (e.g sport), the existing registrants of
sport.com would automatically be grandfathered in.  This ensures that
there is an incentive to register first within the second level domain
on the basis that the tld may become available.   The TLD operator could
set up automatic forwarding from e.g soccer.sport.com to soccer.sport.


A new TLD operator would also need to show that the operator's method of
allocating names protected the intellectual property rights of others,
and that the names registered were not purely for the purposes of brand
protection.

Right now I would have thought that aol.com, hotmail.com, yahoo.com,
gmail.com, etc would have a reasonable case for their own tld based on
number of registrations and usage etc.

Regards,
Bruce Tonkin